


"Just follow me, I know the area." (Day 2)

by demiclar



Series: Fictober 2019 [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Cayvala if you squint, Fictober 2019, mentioned Ikora Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-29 09:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20961620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiclar/pseuds/demiclar
Summary: Zavala and Cayde follow a suspicious pull into the EDZ.





	"Just follow me, I know the area." (Day 2)

Zavala does his best to step quietly through the brush and undergrowth as Cayde leads him into the dead zone. The Farm is behind them, Hawthorn and Devrim managing the civilians and lightless guardians while their own lucky guardian is busy retrieving Ikora from Io. Ikora, Zavala’s stomach clenches at the thought of her. Still, he doesn't know if she is alive or dead. He prays she is alive, even without the light he felt he would know if she were dead, but he knows that's only wishful thinking. He couldn’t operate on wishful thinking, not in a war. 

Even still, if she were alive, he doubts she would think too kindly of him and Cayde venturing into the dead zone on their own. Hawthorn knew where they were going, but they’d refused any offers for assistance or escorts, it wasn’t as if the Vanguards were unfamiliar with danger. Part of him is glad Ikora isn’t with them, and is hopefully safely with their guardian, on her way to the farm and out of harm’s way. The other part of him reminds him that Io is under the Legion’s control, and therefore unsafe, just as they are. Ikora can handle herself, he knows, but he isn’t fond of the idea of her on the planet at all, regardless of its connection to the traveler. 

His roiling thoughts and worry threaten to suffocate him, eased only slightly by the presence of the bright eyed Hunter, creeping just ahead of him. He fixes his eyes on the Hunter, grounding himself to his other fireteam member, safe beside him, for the time being anyways. If he wants it to remain that way, he’ll need to stay vigilant.

They were coming up to a small fallen camp. A fallen banner was being used as a tarp at the back of the little camp, tied to a set of trees to make a sort of shelter below which fallen squatted, eating and resting. Closest to Cayde and Zavala were the reason Cayde had led him here—three pikes, all unoccupied, open for the taking.

He watches Cayde stare at the fallen like a cat ready to catch a meal, and grips his arm just as the Hunter’s hand finds its way to grip his Ace at his thigh.

“Wait.” Zavala hisses. “There are likely more nearby.” He warns, and Cayde glances at him before scanning the area with his eyes. As it turns out, his guess is correct, more fallen teams visible in the distance, far enough away to not concern him, but close enough that a firefight would inevitably draw them in. On the pikes, he knew they could zip right past them, or shoot them if need be, but they had to take out the fallen team before them first.

There were only two fallen at the camp, one squatting under the banner, the other holding a gun and pacing the area. As they wait, a third approaches from around a large boulder behind them, approaching the second fallen and beginning to speak to it in harsh, guttural tones.

“You take the squatter, I’ve got these two.” Cayde tells him, nodding to the two speaking in the center of the camp. He nods in return, raising his gun and firing on Cayde’s mark, nailing the rear fallen through the head just as the hunter buried two knives deep into the other’s throats. 

They don’t waste time after that, not bothering to look to see if any of the other fallen had noticed the shot he’d fired. Instead, they leap to the pikes. Cayde snatches his knives from the still wriggling fallen bodies before he leaps onto a pike, gunning the engine and shooting forward, Zavala just behind.

They’d only been riding for a little over a minute before his feet grow positively icy. He’d never been one to back down from a fight, even if he felt he would lose, so long as it was his life on the line and not someone else’s, but now, he was a commander in the middle of a war, his soldiers scared, angry and lightless. If this was a risk he didn’t have to take, it was one he shouldn’t be taking. 

He guns his pike to move up beside the Hunter’s.

“Cayde.” He calls over the rush of the wind. “I don’t—“

“Just follow me,” Cayde cuts in before he can finish. “I know the area.”

“Cayde,” He tries again, but Cayde is already zipping ahead.

With no choice but to follow, he chases Cayde’s pike through the dead zone, ducking shots and grenades as they hurtle over hills and along curves at near top speed. It takes only minutes to reach the center of the dead zone, where Cayde is leading them. 

Here, their pikes cannot manage the hills, so they deposit them at the bank of a small stream and step into the shallow waters, following the stream uphill, into the deepest part of the forest. 

“You know this place?” Zavala asks him as the sounds from the dead zone faded into the silence of the forest and the gurgling of the stream.

The forest looks ethereal, certainly not something he’d expected of the dead zone, though he would admit, it looked quite alive and dead at the same time. The plants around them glow like those on other planets, while the dense canopy above seems to block out any light from the sun. The stream itself seems to glow as well, though Zavala could see no life in it that might create any form of bioluminescence. Even algae did not grow in the still waters at the top. 

The stream leads them up a gentle slope until they reach a pool of water, circling slowly as little eddies trickle into it from numerous directions up the hill. He’d hardly set his foot into the pool before a noise made him duck in front of Cayde, his gun already raised to defend them.

Before them, a taken portal tears its way into the air, ripping a schism between space and time as the taken do, bending its will to beckon them forth. He shoots Cayde a worried look. Something in his core seems to be drawing him straight into the portal, straight through. From the look on Cayde’s face, it seemed he felt it too. The Hunter takes a deep breath and plunges forward. Zavala follows not a moment later. 

The portal drops them into a different part of the forest. The area is still dark, the stream subtly glowing beside them, but here they stand on a path, the area around them weightless with Taken pull. Even without the light, he can feel the darkness all around them, but if that was the case, why did he feel so drawn here? The tug on his core had not faded, but now lead him up the path following the stream around a bend out of his view.

He takes a step forward, testing that pull on his core and finding it unmoved, sturdy and unrelenting in its demand. He brushes against Cayde as he moves, the other man feeling as tense as a wire pulled taught.

“You feel it, don’t you?” He asks him, shining eyes meeting Zavala’s own.

The commander nods, but says nothing, stepping past him and moving up the path with caution. Most of it is empty, no taken in sight, but as he nears a final bend he begins to hear the familiar chatter of the Fallen. He glances back to warn Cayde, only to find him already by his side, gun already in hand. He gives Zavala a quick nod and together they raise their guns and rush into the small clearing.

The fallen are scattered around a wet marsh area. Water is pooled through the whole clearing, ankle deep with thick grasses growing from the soil underneath. In the center of the space, a large boulder sits, mossy and covered in lichen. Distantly, Zavala realizes it’s the first life he’s seen to come directly from the water of the stream, still subtly glowing.

They dispatch the fallen quickly enough. Cayde yelps when a bullet ricochets off his metal face, and Zavala takes a graze to the underside of his arm, but otherwise they were both unharmed. Once the clearing is empty, he follows the pull in his gut towards another taken portal. This time, he steps through first, dropping into the end of a dark tunnel. Cayde lands just behind him a moment later and together they move along a crooked path shrouded by tall, dark trees, looming over them and reaching towards the massive husk of the traveler far in the distance. 

It seems they’re alone this time, but Cayde’s breathing is heavy as they walk. Anxiety seems to radiate off of him, more than just remnants from their short battle. His eyes seem to fixate on open space, before darting away to another place. Zavala reaches out to brush his arm, but Cayde’s eyes find his before he can touch him.

“I swear I thought I heard…” He stops quickly looking away.

“What?” Zavala prompts.

“Me.” Cayde finishes, but shakes his head before Zavala can respond. Instead, of looking back, he points towards another portal, just ahead of them. “C’mon.” He says, marching toward it without another word.

Again, Zavala follows because there’s nothing else for him to do. The pull on his core is stronger here, the source likely close by. 

When he hits the ground on the other side of the portal, shots are already ringing out around him. Cayde is already running, taking out fallen after fallen with his ace, firing quick shots and hurtling knives into enemies close by. Zavala quickly joins the fray, plunging into the battle after Cayde, though the Hunter seems to have already taken down most of the Fallen.

As soon as the shooting stops, Cayde whirls on him, jabbing a finger out to his right. 

“Do you see that?” He demands, and Zavala realizes the Hunter is shaking.

Following his arm, he finds Cayde’s arm extended to a tall white shard, easily twice his height and width, curving subtly towards them. 

“A shard of the Traveler.” He breathes, glancing towards Cayde as he moves to approach it.

Cayde nods, but his body still tremors, as if he were shivering in the cold. The air around them is cold, Zavala realizes, but Cayde does not shiver, not as an Exo. 

“Ikora’s been here.” He tells him, his bright eyes scanning the ground around the shard as Zavala cautiously steps up to it.

“What?” Zavala questions, “How do you know?”

Cayde shakes his head again. “I don’t, I can just feel it.” He looks back to the shard. “It didn’t help her. She didn’t get her light back.” 

The words settle over Zavala like a weight on his shoulders. He’s made it to the shard now, easily close enough to touch, but he holds his hand just a bit out of reach. It didn’t help her. He hears Cayde’s words echoing in his brain, the shard forsook her. 

He already knows what will follow as he sets his palm against the smooth shard, but the confirmation hurts just as much. Nothing, even as he can feel the power roiling just millimetres away. A lessor man might have tried to take it. He thinks of Ghaul. His hand drops to his side.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a little bit unfinished but I have a feeling all of these will be. I hope you liked it, thanks for reading!


End file.
